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People: Martha Stewart

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Dan9999999

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I never answered your original question, whether I would have voted to convict. Absolutely not.

And, I think this is exactly the kind of case I would most like to be on. If rational people don't address the justice of such a case, then there is no one left but the kind of folks who think the outcome is a boon "for the little people." Had I been there, it would have been a hung jury.

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There is an accounting principle concerning the reporting of the financial activities and standing of a company called full-disclosure. (I realize this is'nt strictly an accounting issue, but bear with me.) The principle requires that any non-financial information significantly impacting the interpretation of the company's financial statements must be disclosed. An example might be litigation pending against the company. (I'm not talking specifically about SEC rules here, though they do enforce this principle. The principle itself is part of the standards set down by the FASB.)

The ethical principle underlying this is that a half-truth is not the truth. A financial statement lacking such information would constitute a deliberate misrepresentation of the state of the company.

How does this apply to the situation of insider trading? The important point to make, and where I think I may be misunderstood, is that the issue is not simply a difference of knowledge, but that one party has control of relevant information. They know that the other party's assessment of the situation cannot be accurate, beacuse relevant information was not available by any legitimate means. They are relying on the ignorance of the other party, which they made inevitable by the lack of disclosure. They are responsible for nullifying the other party's reasoning ability by separating their consciousness from reality. That's fraud. The extent to which the other party may have attempted to engage their rational capacity is irrelevant because of that disconnect.

This doesn't mean that I support insider trading laws as they currently exist and are applied. They are not based on the ethical principles described above, which constitute a very narrow definition of insider trading, and they are arbitrarily applied. There is no way that a proper law could apply to Martha Stewart, since she had no control over the information in question.

feldblum: You're right: your example is arbitrary. Therefore, it illustrates nothing.

Joerj: The tendancies of arbitrary power (e.g. the FDA) are available for anyone to observe. You are correct in that the company's future, insofar as it is in the hands of the FDA, may be interpreted by anyone. It amounts to an educated guess, a calculated risk. If there was specific information about a definite FDA decision which had yet to be announced, then the issue is different. I'm not familiar enough with the entriety of the ImClone case to discuss it any further.

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The non-arbitrary example is: I have more information than the other party; my source can be anything from rational thinking to divine revelation, but it doesn't matter. That's why my example was legitimate, even though it was arbitrary: because nothing in the example is relevant to the moral judgment on insider trading.

If the buyer knows he must beware and why, then he is downright stupid to trade without discovering all the pertinent information. It is no one's fault but his own if he gets burned. Taking things on faith is not the businessman's method. Full disclosure is the best means of convincing rational people to trade and of agreeing on price.

GreedyCapitalist: Want to buy all my stock in CloneMe Corp.?

Evangelist: What is the financial state of your company, including all present and projected legal actions?

GreedyCapitalist: Why, excellent - and [cough] absolutely [cough] no [cough] [cough] legal troubles. A statement which I sign to. [Signs contract.]

That is fraud.

It is also insider trading because all trading is insider. The appelation insider is arbitrary and meaningless.

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Firstly, the current Insider Trading laws do not apply to Martha Stewart. This is why she was not charged with insider trading. She is not an insider by the law's definition.

They are relying on the ignorance of the other party, which they made inevitable by the lack of disclosure.

Lack of disclosure is not fraud. Read previous posts, this has been covered. Especially since it is common knowledge that companies often do not give full disclosure of their doings. All the law does is give traders a false sense of security, so they are more likely not to consider this when trading. In the absense of such a law, comapanies owners (you know: stockholders) may find it in their benifit to make company rules regarding employee trading. Either way, it is to the benifit of the entire market to throw insider trading laws out.

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The following was stated in the thread on the Microsoft looting:

Martha $tewart has earned the sign of the dollar, in success and in adversity.

I recognize that Stewart is a phenomenal business woman. However, I don't think she handled her case in court that much better than Microsoft handled theirs.

Whether under oath or not, she lied to the authorities questioning her. I haven't read her exact statements, but I think this is enough to say that her and her defense are pursuing a pragmatic defense. Instead of arguing that the law Stewart had broken was completely unjust, they tried to duck the charges.

It would take Stewart refusing to enter a plea - like Rearden in AS - to "[earn] the sign of the dollar," which I'm assuming means being a hero.

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It would take Stewart refusing to enter a plea - like Rearden in AS - to "[earn]the sign of the dollar," which I'm assuming means being a hero.

this essentially is what I was trying to get at in the Microsoft EU thread. Microsoft's actions were not heroic, but that doesn't mean they were disgusting. If Reardon's initial ambiguities and fence sitting were "disgusting" I don't see how he could have been admitted into a utopia

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I meant only to contrast Martha Stewart and Microsoft. Martha Stewart is fighting for her rights; Microsoft is sanctioning its own destruction.

The only time one has no right to lie to the authorities is when one is in court and under oath. Martha Stewart was well within her rights not to sanction the government's unjust investigation of her stockbroker.

Microsoft's actions are disgusting; the most vile system of ethics is the one consisting of turn the other cheek.

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This thread has just become tied to the Microsoft thread, and I'm dealing with the facts of reality as they are now or very recently.

Microsoft's actions consist of sanctioning as the morally good the theft of six hundred million dollars. It got slapped on one cheek - and now, by giving in without a word, invites all comers to slap the other.

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The trial and recent conviction of Martha Stewart got me thinking, now the laws against insider trading might be unjust but most of what she was charged with was lying to the investagators, wich persumably should be a crime. So my question is if you were a jurior in her trial would you have found her guilty of comitting a crime to cover up what shouldn't be a crime?

Martha Stewart was involved in a kangaroo court. Did one think that lynchings went out of vogue in the late 19th century in the South? No, they did not. It's just that the victims of such lynchings are not "freedmen" but corporate executives and officers who happen to be eminently successful and proven leaders such as Martha Stewart.

I found it outrageous and a colossal miscarriage of justice that Ms. Stewart was convicted of lying and obstruction of justice, among other things, since these charges were directly related to an activity which the court found was legitimate; hence the dismissal of the "fraud" charges.

I found it interesting and disheartening that on the rightwing message boards they actually approved of such malfeasance from this trial; that they were so transfixed upon the concept of "well, she broke the law, you know, and she should be punished" or, worse "She's not above the law" that they thought justice was served.

One need only go to the MacAddict forum, for instance, under "Ministry of Free Thought" and peruse the responses to my thread "The Lynching of the Successful" to see what it is that constitutes mainstream thinking these days. On the Right and on the Left are those who are obedient of the rule of Man, not rule of law.

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Now it's "self-made-men" that are the victims of these lynchings-by-Marxist-jury.

There are plenty right-wingers who think that, in communist, socialist, fascist, or otherwise dictatorial regimes, justice is served by punishing those who break the law. There are too many who think that morality is defined by government, as opposed to morality judging government.

Justice exists independently of, is prior to, and gives rise to law. Not the other way around.

All antitrust actions and everything like them are unjust, fraudulent, and savage. Period. Martha Stewart's case is no exception.

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